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 Jabberwocky March 15, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Like the famous non-sense poem, the book feels like it ought to make sense, but it never does. As you read, you will have the feeling of impending meaning, and that in the next paragraph, or on the next page, or in the next chapter, everything will come together and you will have your moment of clarity. Never happens.
Whatever you think Paulo Freire means, you are wrong.
 Critical Solutions for Five Billion Poor Including US Poor January 7, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Over a year ago 24 of us decided to co-found the Earth Intelligence Network and begin producing public intelligence in the public interest. We quickly expanded the vision to include a Transpartisan Policy Institute and a Public Budget Office. Today, for free, any citizen can get a weekly report on "GLOBAL CHALLENGES: The Week in Review." Our free report is superior in multiple ways to the President's Daily Brief, which costs the taxpayer $1.2 billion per WEEK ($60 billion for secret intelligence, pro rated over 52 weeks).
Early on we realized that educating the five billion poor was both a non-negotiable first step, and "mission impossible" if we accepted the standard educational system that is part prison, part child care and part didactic dildo display (my lesson outline is bigger than yours).
Before I read this book, we had conceptualized a concept for educating the five billion poor "one cell call at a time," leveraging free cell phones and 100 million volunteers covering 183 languages, each using Telelanguage and Skype to be available on demand.
Now, with this book, and also Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (Critical Perspectives Series), I feel we have struck the mother lode.
A few notes and then some other links.
+ Stark critique of the "banking" system of education that deposits knowledge without teaching critical thinking or how to create new knowledge.
+ Relevant to US, not just Third World.
+ It's about class, not race. Concentration of wealth above, poverty below.
+ The author illuminates for all of us "the humanizing voaction of the individual" and the "power of thought to negate accepted limits."
+ Modern education instills a culture of silence and lethargy. Friere's work instead inspires liberation, dignity, and the ability to change.
+ Illiterates are not stupid, they just cannot read. They *can* be empowered, taught, and energized orally.
+ Education is NOT neutral--it is either teaching for the benefit of the oppressors (producing docile factory workers) or for the benefit of the opprssed (liberating, empowering with individual volition).
+ Dehumanization is a historical reality.
+ False charity perpetuates dependenct.
+ Recognition of reality liberates BOTH the oppressed and the oppressor.
+ Oppressed must break free from "having is being" and learn that "being is enough."
+ The oppressed cannot be "granted" freedom, it must result from an interactive dialog that liberates both sides
+ Liberation and revolution or transformation for the good of all are essentially pedagogical missions with very high ethical content.
+ Humanizing pedagogy is the anti-thesis of propaganda, manipulation, and deceit.
+ "Co-intentional" education
+ Authentic thinking can only be realized in communication with another
+ Pyramical (one-way) education enslaves, circular (multi-way)education liberates
+ Any educational system that does not respect nor elicit the student's own worldview is culturally invasive
+ Education of the five billion poor must begin by LISTENING to them.
+ "Libertarian education" STARTS with the needs and views of those to be educated.
+ Communion and communication leads to cooperation and cultural synthesis.
A few links:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Education for the Poor May 13, 2007
This is a discussion of curriculum for the education of poor people. It is written by a man who made it his life mission to help the oppressed masses. While Freire no longer lives, his work continues in South America.
This book is an insight to Freire's thoughts.
Change your mind April 15, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a profound little book that makes a cogent argument for effective change in individual and social thought processes. It will change the way you think about oppression and what it actually is for those who are oppressed. This is a book for everyone but especially for those who want to make a change for the better in themselves and the society at large. A thought provoking and challenging book!
 A must-read one if you are keen on Education February 2, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
You will see how his idea is very influential in the educational discourse. Intrigued particularly by the Chapter 2, I would say that his revlutionary notion of education will be alive and well-adapted in the contemporary educational practices.
Freire wants to critisize the idea of narrative education in which teachers just impose students with plentiful information without encouraging them to think cirtically and to search for realilty, and students just listen passively, try to memorize, and repeat teacher's words and lessons accordingly. In fact, education should be to forster students' creativity, transformation ,and knowledge so that it helps them to become fully human being. In the ideology of oppression, teacher is the oppressor, and students are the oppressed. It means it is not neccessary for students to argue, ask questions, have their own position, and the roles of teacher are to preach students and to dominate their opinions. In other words, it is called the banking concept of education used by oppresors to change the mind of the oppressed in order to easily cotrol them. Conversely, the concept of liberian education entails deeper cooperation between teachers and students. Teachers and students can learn from each other because students must be seen as people who have prior knowlege and raise their opinions influencing teachers'.
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